Nursing Home Litigation Settlement Recovery

Pinellas County, FL

This action involved an elderly man, victim-Plaintiff, who suffered from mild cognitive impairment and dementia for which he was residing in a nursing home. The man had a known fall history upon admission to the nursing home and suffered additional falls after admission that did not result in him suffering severe injuries. The victim’s family reported its concerns about the Plaintiff-victim being a fall risk, concerns about the initial falls, and requested that the nursing home better and properly supervise him in order to prevent more, or more serious, falls.

Sadly, the Plaintiff-suffered a total of five falls in a relatively short residency at the last nursing home – the final fall there resulted in a severe head trauma, intra-cranial (inside the skull) bleed that caused his transport to the hospital and untimely death. The Plaintiff-victim left behind a spouse and multiple children who hired Emerson Straw PL to investigate, litigate and, if necessary, proceed to trial on behalf of the Estate and family to obtain compensation from the defendant-nursing home.

Emerson Straw hired multiple expert witnesses on skilled nursing home care standards and gerontology to render opinions on liability for the nursing home’s failure to provide supervision and fall prevention measures for the Plaintiff-victim. The defense argued that the Plaintiff-victim’s falls were not preventable and that his mental and physical health status were worse than the Plaintiff-victim’s family believed.

Based significantly upon a proffer of evidence to the trial court showing that the family’s complaints of inadequate supervision to the nursing home were ignored, the trial court allowed the Plaintiff to pursue punitive damages against the defendant on the basis that the ignored complaints could rise to the level of gross negligence. Numerous depositions and hearings were required to uncover factual information on behalf of the Estate that would be necessary to prove its case at trial.

Just prior to the start of trial, the parties agreed to a substantial confidential monetary settlement that would eliminate the necessity of trial and compensate the Estate’s beneficiaries, spouse and children, for the premature and preventable loss of their husband and father.

This case exemplifies how elderly citizens with serious medical issues can still suffer compensable harm when their medical caregivers fail to provide proper nursing care to these vulnerable members of society. Simply because a victim is old or ill does not mean that the injuries and harms that they suffer cannot be the basis for substantial compensation. This case is a prime example of how skilled and zealous representation and advocacy resulted in a recovery in excess of seven figures (or one million dollars) for the Estate in a case often argued by insurance companies and healthcare corporations to have less value.